


Like a Nightmare, Like a Dream

by cadkitten



Category: Batman (Comics), Batman - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Blood, Confessions, Eventual Romance, Gen, Hacking, M/M, Near Death Experiences, Revelations, Time Fuckery
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-05
Updated: 2017-10-05
Packaged: 2019-01-09 05:51:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 6,108
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12270183
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cadkitten/pseuds/cadkitten
Summary: Gotham was - simply put -Gotham. Bruce had done the unthinkable, had broken his own rules for Jason, and it had all been for naught. This life had ended right here, three different angles showing him everything he could have ever needed to know about it, all of the suit's readouts telling him the person being impacted wasdead, telling him the person within the suit was on the verge themselves. And yet... it didn't feelreal.It felt like a nightmare.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> For my writing challenge #15: What Should Have Been.  
> I finally read A Death in the Family and my heart is shattered.  
> Beta Readers: kate1zena  
> Song[s]: "11:11" by In This Moment

Jason's mask dangled from his fingertips as he stared at the three large screens in front of him. Flickering images filled the screens, each one of them from a different angle, each one of them _damning_. 

He stared at the endless loop just as he had been for what felt like hours. Bruce's fists colliding with Joker's face again and again. Blood spraying across the wet pavement, teeth coming loose with the force of impact, spit on the ground in the midst of the silenced laughter of a long ago pressed mute button. 

He saw rage and desperation painted across a face that usually remained so impassive it was impossible to _find_ emotion. He saw an anger unparalleled. 

Punch after punch, each one harder than the last, enough so that Jason could hear the dull thump of fist to gut, to jaw, to eye, to _throat_ without the speakers telling him a thing. 

He watched mirthful delight on the face of his own murderer, watched the brightness and then the _dullness_ that implied death, and yet... the fists still impacted, again and again, an unyielding, unending rain of _anguish_ until blue and black striped fingers closed over Bruce's shoulder, until the gentle touch tugged him away.

Jason stood and watched the rain pour down on _Death_ and he felt his insides rolling with turmoil he thought he'd long since dealt with. He could still recall his own words, his own venom as he'd _blamed_ Bruce for not having taken this very life. He could still _hear_ the repression in the voice that replied that some rules were unbreakable.

His fingers reached for the button to start the loop again, hesitated, and then curled them into a fist and brought his hand back to his side, his head bowed as he allowed himself this moment to just _feel_.

Gotham was – simply put – _Gotham_. Bruce had done the unthinkable, had broken his own rules for Jason, and it had all been for naught. This life had ended right here, three different angles showing him everything he could have ever needed to know about it, all of the suit's readouts telling him the person being impacted was _dead_ , telling him the person within the suit was on the verge themselves. And yet... it didn't feel _real_. 

It felt like a nightmare.

Jason took one step back and then two, rushed forward to close down his session and then pulled back as though the console had burned him. 

He'd come home to this. Come back to the cave, to a place he'd never stopped considering _home_ to this playing endlessly on the screen, to the angry sounds of violence so deep that his heart had leapt into his throat, that copper had birthed itself from his lungs into his mouth leaving him feeling the bile rolling in his stomach. 

He'd come home to an empty sort of place. No signs of struggle, no signs of _life_ , and he found himself shaken to his very core, unable to keep himself within the clutches of _vigilante_ like he so knew he needed to.

His hands shook as he reached for his comm, as he tried to take stock of his surroundings once again, even as his breath whispered across the line, sounding so unlike it usually did.

"Is anybody out there?"

It sounded like a plea into the darkness, sounded like the desperate cry for help that it was.

He heard the crackle and then the whisper of wind over a mic, the quiet subvocalizations of Robin. "Only us." It sounded like how he felt, sounded deep and desperate and he closed his eyes, trying to imagine Damian like that, tried to imagine him upset enough to show that much emotion.

"Where are you?"

Robin's voice sounded broken when he spoke again. "Hidden. Like you should be."

And _that_...

That scared him like nothing else could have. _Damian_ hiding from anything meant Hell on Earth. Meant... perhaps the end of the earth.

He worked a shiver out of his spine, opened his eyes and walked quickly to the cabinets that contained their gear, began pulling out the pieces that were for the less faint of heart missions. The explosives, the _deadly_ weapons meant for things closer to non-sentient attacking species, and he loaded himself as much as he did a spare backpack, a second change of clothing to something _darker_ for Damian, their gas masks, and their survival gear. 

When he was done, he opened the line again and swung his leg over his motorcycle. “Give me an idea of which way to head, but don't tell me exactly where you are. Incoming with gear." His voice... it reminded him of something. Reminded him of another time, another _him_ , and he shut off his mic to begin the silent prayer he always said when he felt himself slipping. The only thing that kept him _here_.

The line crackled in his ear as he left the cave, as he navigated his way out past all the triggers and traps they'd set to keep people _out_. 

"Not Gotham."

The words were enough to let him know exactly where Damian was. The only place he would have considered safe if his father had disappeared. _With Grayson_. Except... he'd said _only us_ , which clearly implied he'd found his secondary haven just as empty as the first. It meant– 

Jason swallowed as he sped through the narrow roads out toward the Blüd. He took the lesser traveled routes, took the backstreets that only added a minute or two instead of the highway. He took _caution_ over barging his way in.

He still arrived twelve minutes faster than he should have by all legal standards, even _their_ legal standards. 

He kept himself away from Dick's apartments, away from his safe houses, and he considered his options here. There was nothing he could think of that would tip him off as to where Damian might be, what he'd consider safe if it wasn't their own holes. He opened the comm line again. "Okay... _not_ Gotham obtained. Anything else I should know?"

A shudder of breath across the line and then, "Turn off your tracker. Three miles south and look for safety. I will find you."

Jason made his way through the streets, did as he was asked and completely _disposed_ of his tracker rather than just turning it off. He found safety in what had once been one of Dick's garages. _Before_ their resident golden boy had left for Spyral, _before_ his fake death and _before_ his world shaken apart.

It was too well kept, too pristine to have been abandoned, and Jason realized somewhat belatedly that Damian must have been keeping them all in his own name. Had to have transferred the assets somewhere none of the family even knew about.

He kept himself ready, waiting, and when the shadows shifted and Damian emerged from them, he couldn't help the stunned look that painted his face. 

Damian was _covered_ in blood, absolutely drenched in it, and he was holding a _gun_ in his left hand, clutched as if he were holding onto a safety net. It was all the warning Jason needed to ensure he wasn't going to try to take it from him.

Worry worked its way through him and he heard himself adopting a voice that wasn't his own, heard the growl of it, the _play_ at the man they both needed right then. 

"Report."

"The case we were working went bad." Damian's breath caught, his steps pausing for a moment, and Jason had to resist going to him, knowing Damian wouldn't want that from any of them. "End of the world _bad_. That part," his hand waved idly for a moment, his look almost distant, "subverted. The rest is not."

 _Sacrifice_.

The word hung in the air around them, hung there until Jason could feel the desire to start panting welling up inside him and he shuddered hard.

"Injury report."

"Nightwing is..." He heard the hesitation, the _anguish_ in the unspoken words before Damian shook his head and gestured at his suit. "This is his. Before they took him."

"They who?"

Damian's free hand shook now, shook as he took two more steps toward Jason and then crumpled to the floor, dropping like a lead weight.

Jason was off the bike in a second, across the room, and refamiliarizing himself with the various catches and clasps on Damian's suit that he'd memorized years ago for just such an emergency. He had them _all_ memorized. Every one of their suits, everything about them. His knees hit the ground and he began moving the bloodsoaked cloth out of the way, unfastening and unclipping until he had Damian's outfit down to his hips, found nothing that could have tipped him off as to what was going on.

Frustration welled up inside him as he yanked the field kit from his inner jacket pocket, ripped back the pad and pressed it to Damian's inner arm, let it take the bio sample it needed and sat back for the longest thirty seconds he'd ever had. The readout told him Damian was simply knocked out, showed him low levels of some basic nutrients and a few vitamins, spit out a suggested treatment on a small slip of paper and then began running the deeper tests.

Unzipping his bag further, Jason rooted until he found the injections and pulled out a few of the suggested ones, making quick work of getting them into Damian's system, watching the quick pant of Damian's breath ease somewhat after the first few. The reader beeped and he gave a soft sigh of relief, pulling out their general antidote and injecting that as well before setting about getting Damian's fresh set of clothing out of the bag. It was closer to his own getup than what Damian was used to, but given how similar their build had gotten over the past few years, he didn't figure it mattered much. 

He picked up the bloodied remnants of clothing and walked them to the cleanup area at the back of the garage, running one quick test to tell him that - yes - it was Grayson's blood all over Damian's uniform and he winced at how _much_ of it there was. Wondered if someone could _survive_ that.

He didn't let it hold him there, didn't allow it to stop him from gathering what else he could from the back room to add to their stash, to build a bag for Damian just as much as he had his own. 

The kid had _taste_ , that was for sure. Most of the same things Jason kept in his own safe spaces, a few things Jason would love to discuss with him _later_ , and a hell of a lot of all the things he'd need in case of an emergency like this.

“Son of the Bat” was a title Jason wouldn't be begrudging him anytime soon.

He knelt next to Damian and took his pulse, watched as bleary eyes regarded him, blinked a few times, and then regained the edge of panic he'd sensed before. "Father?"

Jason shook his head. "No sign of him. There was..." he winced, "a _gift_ for me on the screens. Someone who knows us enough to know how to get in and out without tripping the alarms has to be involved."

Damian pulled his wrist from Jason's grip, rolled himself up to standing, turning his back and silently starting to change his clothing. "Not anyone else. A protocol message from Father. I presume it was –" hesitation there for a mere second, "the proof of what he did for you?"

Jason stared at Damian's back for a moment before turning away, pulling himself up from the floor and zipping up the backpack again. "Joker..."

"Yes." Damian's voice held some quality Jason couldn't quite place. "A message that things are so dire that he wanted to at least leave you with the _truth_ , that he would allow you to choose your path from here."

"Rescue him or not."

"Save _us all_ or not."

Jason winced, settling the bag back on his back and heading back toward his bike. "As if I wouldn’t."

"Once you would not have even considered it."

A sneer settled on Jason's lips as he seated himself. "Once, I was _ever so slightly_ mentally unstable. Now it's of the more reasonable variety."

A laugh, the smallest one, and it felt so begrudging, as if Damian didn't truly want to laugh right now. "Admitting is the first step to knowing you have a problem."

A _joke_. Jason's internal alarms ignited at that, though he _understood_. Damian already making up for the one he had already counted as lost within his mind. For the dearest piece of his entire life. For _Grayson_.

He started the bike. "C'mon. We need to get out of here. Off the grid and then we can make a plan."

"You don't make plans." There was a quiet certainty in that.

"I do when shit gets this bad. Trust me."

Damian's arms around him felt like the extra grounding he needed and the way he clutched him tighter than was necessary told everything else it ever needed to about Damian's current state. The fact that Jason needed this spoke volumes about his own.

Blüdhaven's air rushed around them, stinging and biting in a way that left Jason wishing he had his helmet. But he'd left it behind, understood the necessity of not dragging that part of himself into this at the moment. Off the grid meant exactly that and he was pushing it with just his jacket and pants remaining unchanged, with the symbol on his chest beneath the getup. He'd have to find something else. 

He drove for hours, his bike speeding through the night until he felt Damian's grip slackening, until he knew exhaustion was taking the place of gripping fear and he took them as far from the main road as he dared, found them a little hole in the wall and paid in cash, checked them in under a name he'd never used before and would never use again. 

Damian all but stumbled to the bed, shaking by the time he dropped down on it, and Jason hovered nearby, not hiding the worry etched in his features. "How long ago?"

He watched the kid's eyes flick to the clock, come back to him, and he saw all the cracks in the facade, saw every ounce of pain that usually remained hidden behind layers of bravado. "Twenty hours."

Jason's gut clenched and he knelt next to the bed. "You didn't call me. _Why_?"

Damian reached out, his hand fisting in Jason's jacket for a moment and then releasing. "Would you have called _me_?"

That question stung more than it should have, left him realizing he wouldn't have, would have tried to do it on his own, would have –

He shook his head, looking away, knowing his shame was written just as clearly as his worry had been. "No."

Damian's hand released him and when he looked back, he was out, as if someone had flipped a switch on him, and he realized he hadn't slept in probably two days, hadn't let his guard down in that long, and he sighed, quietly circuiting the room and placing all the triggers for every entry point. 

He sat down and made a list. Who could they trust and would did they have no choice _but_ to trust? Who were the suspects, far reaching as it might be.

At the top of the list, one name, underlined and written so harshly it could have carved the desk beneath it if he'd let it. 

_Joker_.


	2. Chapter 2

Jason sat on the edge of their motel room bed, his elbows on his thighs, listening as Damian recounts everything for the fifth time. Exact details born of a mind trained from such a young age to see the world around him how it truly is rather than how it appears. There are descriptions of how things were, when they changed, how things became, and along with it every detail down to scent and sensation, the weather and _sound_.

Shifting to stand next to the window, Jason leaned against the wall, his arms crossed over his chest as he considers it all. It sounds _impossible_. Something they couldn't see, no scent or taste to the air, no indications of anything at all. The most disturbing part is where Damian is telling him again about Dick's interaction with whatever it was: his body rolling in the air, his blood welling from punctures that have no consistency, almost as if old wounds were busting open one by one, piercing his suit with their potency. 

There's fear in Damian's voice even as he's reciting this for what probably feels like the millionth time. Nothing has changed in his story, each of the details just as precise and painful as they were the first time. 

Their list hasn't moved from the dresser where he'd put it before bed last night, though it has a few more names on it. A few magic users Jason hasn't truly trusted on the 'possibilities' list and the few heroes they know their whereabouts during the time on the 'not possible' list. 

Dragging one hand over his face, Jason pushed away from the wall and came to kneel in front of Damian once again, looking up in to the kid's eyes. 

"Tell me where your mind goes when it tries to solve this."

"Three day ago we picked up on a strange influx across our comms. Just an energy reading, nothing else, but our records showed nothing outside of the usual when we checked it. Still we switched channels, secured everything tighter," he gestured, "the usual protocols. I have no proof of anything, but my gut tells me it is related."

Jason sat back, bit lightly at his lower lip as he considered. "Frequency variance?"

"More like a surge across the lines. That's what it felt like anyway."

"Felt like?" Jason studied Damian's features. "Did you feel something physically?"

"I did. A little electrical buzzing jolt. No one else felt it but they all heard the line crackle for a few seconds."

Jason set his jaw and then shook his head. "Years ago, do you remember when you got hit on one of the early Teen Titans runs and blacked out, woke up in the cave?"

"Of course." 

Jason pointedly ignored the tone of Damian's voice, pressing his lips in a thin line for a moment before releasing them. "All these little pieces of shrapnel ended up in your ear and neck. Took us forever to get them all out and there was one that if we so much as nudged it you might have ended up deaf. Rather than bothering it, we just killed the nerve endings around it and stabilized the placement. Just sort of made more sense at the time I guess. Assuming you never had it removed since then maybe it shorted out whatever caused all of this when it tried to affect you."

"Then why aren't _you_ affected?"

"I had the night off, needed to help Roy retrieve one of his experiments, so I didn't have my comm in. I had Roy's instead."

Jason studied Damian, watched the way he swallowed, considered, and then nodded. "Fine. No one covered your area?"

"Couldn't find anyone."

"Who all did you ask?"

"Kori, Bizzaro – he offered to drop in a bit just to make sure it wasn't going to absolute hell but things got hairy with him and Artemis, the rest of you have your own issues lately so I didn't even ask. It's not like Gotham's going to go _more_ to shit for one night I'm gone."

Damian snorted somewhat derisively. "Until it does."

"Yeah... until it _does_." Jason reached up and pinched the bridge of his nose, letting himself drop back against the second bed, arm dangling over his knees as he gazed somewhere to the left of Damian. "So this electrical signal... what... plants something inside them? Tries to destro – _oh God_." Jason snapped his gaze back to Damian, his heart in his throat. "I know where Bruce is."

He pushed himself to his feet, started to drag his jacket on and then froze. "Tim... he's –" his chest clenched and he actually gagged a little on his next breath, leaning over Damian, grasping his shoulders tight. "Dick got all cut up in front of you, right? Tell me, was it exactly like this?" He lifted one hand, traced the pattern he knew from memory across his own body, watched Damian's eyes track it until he was done, watched the horror draw itself across his face, and he looked up, his eyes wide and so vulnerable for an instant before it was gone. 

"You would have been in your own grave."

"And you."

"Tim is –"

"– in Hell again." Damian shoved himself up, pushed past Jason toward his own bags. "I know where Grayson is, too. We get him first. He'll die without us. Father and Drake will live longer."

"This still doesn't answer _who_." Jason did up his jacket, pushed his sunglasses up on his nose and held out a second pair he'd retrieved this morning from the gas station for Damian. 

"Who _else_ has their fingers always messing in our stew?"

Jason made a face at the image that provided, connected the dots as much as he dared and snatched his keys up and heading to his bike.

The world seemed to give way in front of them, the speed Jason put on his bike so far outside of safety regulations that his mind screamed at him to slow down all the way back toward Gotham. 

Dirt and gravel sprayed up around them as he brought them in to a stop outside the abandoned cement factory backed right up to Gotham harbor. Neither he nor Damian hesitated, both of them splitting off toward opposite sides of the long-beached ship that had once contained the device that had demanded Dick's heart to stop or the entire thing blow.

Jason drew his guns and stepped into the huge gash along the underbelly of the hulking ship. Skirting along the wall, he kept to the shadows, making his way toward the center of the ship until he found exactly what he thought they would. 

Grayson hung from the contraption, blood pooled beneath him and the readings on the machine showing he had mere hours before he either had to be dead or everyone else would be.

Swallowing, Jason took the steps up onto the machine two at a time, heard movement to his right and shifted to allow Damian in as well. 

"He has to die to disarm this, yes?"

"As long as it's like last time, yes."

Brushing Jason aside, Damian reached up and determinedly jabbed two pressure points along Dick's neck and then another up under his arm. 

The steady low pulse of the machine quickened and then stopped completely. The shackles holding Dick in unlatched and Jason caught him as he fell to the floor. The numbers across the front of the device blanked out and Jason instinctively winced away from it, covering Dick. When nothing happened, he opened his mouth to ask Damian what he'd done.

He need not have bothered, because a moment later, Damian was touching other pressure points, massaging the one under Dick's arm with his other hand, and Dick's first shaky breath was everything Jason needed to know.

Relief shuddered through him and he shifted, pulling their notepad from his pocket and showing it to Damian, tapping the third name down on the people to trust list and giving him a questioning look.

Damian gave a short nod and Jason took in a steadying breath. "Superman... Nightwing needs you _now_."

The air moved around them and Jason could feel Damian tense before Clark was there, not Superman, and he was pulling Dick into his arms. "I'll take him to-"

"He's gone. We'll fix that part, but someone _else_ needs to fix him up."

There was a second's hesitation and then the obviousness of Clark reading the list, eyes lingering on his own name for a moment before giving a nod. "No one on the other side of that list then." 

He was gone before Jason could even take another breath, the device gone a moment later and Jason flicked his eyes to Damian, letting his concern show openly on his features. "Think we just did the right thing?"

"Better than letting him bleed out, is it not?"

Jason nodded, stood and studied Damian. "Are you up to the task of getting Red Robin out or do we need to bring someone else in?"

"I a-" Damian took a deep breath and then shook his head. "I am not him. There _is_ someone, though they are, perhaps, on the wrong side of the law a lot of the time."

"As long as they aren't the cause, I don't see how that matters right now. If you think they can get him out, then we go to them."

He could see the slightest twitch of Damian's lips, knew it made him feel better about being stuck with Jason to know that he'd concede to whatever was needed to save their family. "I need the seediest internet connection you can find. Terminal access is all I need."

Jason shifted, fished out a phone still wrapped in the packaging he always placed all his burners in to indicate they hadn't been used or even turned on since purchase. Tossing it to Damian, he murmured, "How about black market cellular data use?"

Damian knelt down and ripped off the packaging, powering up the phone and letting it connect. A few taps and he pulled up an external site he'd left for himself for just such a case and initiated contact with his guy. 

Jason stood up, pacing the perimeter of their little area, going through the routine of searching everything out again and again until he heard Damian stand up, heard the crack of the device and the little electrical sizzle that meant it'd been fried as much as broken. 

"One hour, I drive as the contact location is not to be so much as spoken."

Jason held out his keys and followed after Damian across the sand and back toward what he was starting to deem _their_ motorcycle. 

He settled behind Damian, held on as tight as he dared as Damian brought it to life beneath them and pulled out, leaving a short spray of gravel but nothing else behind them.

They left the city via routes Jason would never have taken, zigzagged in and out of the various towns peppered around Gotham only to end up behind a shoddy little gas station in an area Jason hadn't ever been in before. He was pretty sure they were still outside Gotham city limits, wondered idly if they were even _in_ the next town.

A beat up little pickup pulled into the lot, a slim figure stepping out of the truck and heading right for Damian, making Jason tense and his fingers itch to move closer to his gun though he didn't dare move at all given how stalk still Damian was.

They held out a tablet to Damian and he wordlessly took it, crouched down and worked over the screen as though he'd been built to do exactly that and _only_ that. Nothing on the screen meant shit to Jason, all of it done in what he could identify as a programming language but not one that he was familiar with. 

The minutes seemed to drag by, making him more and more uncomfortable until Damian finally held the tablet out. "Payment given and I have uploaded the necessary information on where your touch is needed."

The figure shifted, the light hanging over the back door revealing nothing more than a flash of dark skin to Jason's gaze. They crouched down next to Damian, hip against the edge of the dumpster and Jason watched in fascination as their fingers skated over the tablet, obviously looking over the provided data. 

It wasn't nearly as long as it had taken Damian before their fingers paused, their head tilted and then a quiet, "Hmm," issued and then, "Maybe..." a single keystroke and a blinding flash of light burst somewhere overhead.

Jason was up in an instant, gun out and immediately casing everything.

Damian's crouch had changed into something Jason could only call _ready_ , the only one of them unmoved their little hacker friend. As though they'd _expected_ it, perhaps.

A strangled moan came from somewhere to Jason's right, out in the darkness of the dirt lot beside them and Jason gave Damian one furtive glance, received a nod, and then he was disappearing into the darkness, quiet as he could manage given the lack of his usual gear and the unfamiliar terrain underfoot. 

There was a whisper of what sounded like a cape and then a half-strangled spit of words, "Come closer and I _kill you_."

He stopped where he was, relief filling him, though he kept his gun at the ready. He breathed out a quiet, "Red Hood, just saving your ass, that's all."

Another choked sound and a little flare of light, a burning match flickering between Tim's fingers before he pulled himself up from the ground, arm wrapped around his middle, a wince frozen in time on his features. "I was back _there_."

"Yeah, we know..."

" _We_?"

"Got your favorite person in the whole world with me. Thank him later, but I think he just got you out of there and I'm not sure what he just had to give up to do it."

Jason heard the pickup leaving, watched the headlights of his bike flicker to life and he realized he was one seat short for this adventure again. Before he could so much as think about what to do, Clark was there again, stepping in and holding out his arms to Tim, who just fell gratefully into them without question.

Clark shot Jason a worried look. "How many more?"

"If you could check on the others and let us know what you find, I think it was only those of us working three days ago. Oracle was down for the count with the flu and Orphan has been off grid for months, though I would like it if-"

The wind whipped around him and Jason stayed his words for a moment, watching Tim waver on the spot before Clark was back, his arm wrapped around Tim again. "Oracle, Orphan, and Spoiler all accounted for."

"Du-" Jason cut himself off, wincing internally at the slip up and then offering quietly, "Signal?"

Clark paused, tipping his head in a way to indicate he was listening. "Accounted for."

"Then it's only one." Jason's eyes flicked to Tim, watched the labored why he was breathing for a moment, reaching to squeeze his hand before turning away. "This one is both easier and more difficult."

Jason made his way back to where Damian was waiting, already on the bike, slid on behind him and settled right up against him with a sigh. "Do we follow Tim's footsteps or do we just aim for the end result and hope real hard?"

"They have all been at their final destinations, not in stages throughout. Father will be as well."

Jason recalled that particular case file in near intimate detail, knew it like he knew the one outlining his own death and the ones chronicling his return. Swallowing, he breathed out, "Then this is easy. We find Zatana and we find a way to the Vanishing Point."

"No. That was not his final destination." He hesitated and then, "Clark? Who has been in the watchtower?"

The air moved again, this time almost rocking the bike and Clark was in full Superman getup, blood on his hands, something that looked like alien _guts_ smudged over his cheek. 

Jason winced.

"I can hear Wonder Woman, the Lanterns, and," he canted his head, an odd look passing over his face, "Oh, I did _not_ want to hear that. Ray is there as well."

"Could you have the system scan for anyone who may not have a heartbeat?"

Clark reached up and hit his communicator, subvocalizing what he needed to the system, and then looking purely alarmed at the reply. "He's –" and just like that he was gone, leaving the essence of his presence behind and nothing more.

"Easier than Vanishing Point... assuming he is not unrevivable by now." There was a detachment in the words, one that Jason understood, and he swallowed back his own emotions. He'd assumed Bruce would be the one to be _okay_ , the one they didn't need to worry about, and yet...

He shook it off, slid his arms around Damian again and breathed out, "Take us where we can figure out _who_ did this."

Shove it down. Ignore it until later.

That was how they survived after all.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Song[s]: "Lay Your Gun Down" by In This Moment

Jason stood silently beside the computer in the cave. He and Damian had apprehended the culprit hours ago, locked him away with the other menaces to society and given serious thought to resolving everything the way they tended toward wanting to. He still wasn't so sure about his own decisions in that regard.

His eyes were drawn to the screen again and again, despite nothing being on it any longer. No images of Bruce murdering the Joker. No evidence of it having popped up at all other than his vivid memories that would never be wiped completely free.

The dull thumps of fist against flesh resonated in his mind every time he closed his eyes and with it came the realization that he'd only _thought_ he wanted Bruce to commit that atrocity for him.

Seeing it done. Seeing Bruce lose his fragile control and beat a man to death left something aching inside of him. The air shifted and Jason closed his eyes, did his best to school himself into the nothingness he'd once perfected around Bruce. He could smell his aftershave, the liniment from the hospital, even the faint ozone that was Clark's departed presence. 

None of it helped ground him.

He could feel his heart shattering, feel the threat of something he hadn't done since _childhood_ stinging deep inside of him and he allowed the tremble in his fingers instead. Let the frog crawl up in his throat and swallowed against it as he turned to look at Bruce. 

Bruce looked just as he always did. A little worse for the wear, but very much the man Jason had always admired. The man he'd once _fought_ in some half-cocked insanity to find himself and his place once again.

Pain ripped at his insides and Jason did the only thing he could think to do, the only thing that wanted to come naturally to him. He stepped into Bruce's personal space, he leaned over the chair, caught the back with one hand, Bruce's thigh with the other, and he _searched_. He allowed his own walls to crumble, allowed Bruce to see him naked as he would ever be before him, begged the same with only his actions.

He watched the way Bruce blinked, the way the barriers came down, and he saw the tired man in front of him, saw an ache deep and dark as his own, and he saw a longing that felt like a mirror.

Jason moved his hand from the back of the chair, ghosted it over Bruce's jaw, cupped it against his neck, and then pushed it up into his hair as he leaned in, left himself barely a hair's breadth from Bruce's lips, and there he allowed his breath to hitch, allowed himself _indecision_.

Bruce's fingers curled around his wrist, tight on the hand over his thigh, but he didn't pull away, didn't back down, and _that_ was all Jason ever needed to know. His lips sealed with Bruce's own, his tongue delving in to taste, to _claim_ , and he couldn't claim surprise when it was returned just as readily, when he swore he could feel Bruce's every emotion spread before him. 

It wasn't a lot. It wasn't _everything_. But it was what he needed, what they both needed, and when he pulled back, it was only to press his forehead to Bruce's own, to close his eyes and just _be_.

It felt like a dream and Jason had to wonder: _how long before this, too, would shatter_?


End file.
